#sorry for the paragraphs everyone

[screambirdscreaming]

Something that peeves me whenever I see another post going around with some variation on "autistic people take things literally which means we are the only people who communicate Clearly and Directly" is that - for any given statement, there is not one singular, agreed on, universal Literal Interpretation. If there was, none of this would be a problem!

The nature of language is that there's always some degree of interpretability. Words have several different meanings, often overlapping, and there's nuance of context, cultural references, and so on.

Faced with a statement, most people will quickly come up with an interpretation that to them makes the most sense. But if you asked a roomful of people to explain in detail their interpretations, everyone's would probably be a little different, even for a pretty simple statement. Regardless of whether those people are autistic! Everyone conceptualizes the world a little differently, and everyone has a unique personal history of all the language they've encountered, and these things effect our interpretations.

In order for communication to be workable, given this slosh in interpretability, there's another couple of processes that go on. As conversation goes on, people reassess if their initial interpretation matches up with additional context. If it doesn't, they revise it, or ask clarifying questions. And on the flipside of this process, the other person in conversation is tracking if your reactions make sense with *their* understanding of what they're trying to convey to you, and offering context or rephrasing things if it seems you're out of alignment.

These processes are social skillsets that are, like most social skillsets, not ever directly articulated or explained. Many people are bad at one or both. Sometimes you encounter someone who is really, notably good at it - the vaunted "good listener", who puts in the effort to really understand what you're trying to say, or that really excellent teacher who engages with you back and forth until you really get it. But a lot of the time, it's a sort of passive social friction - people just not getting each other.

Sometimes, you encounter someone whose brain works so much like yours that talking to them feels almost effortless - you just get each other. But that's a pretty rare occurrence for anyone. More often, as you get to know someone, you start to understand the shape of the way they interpret things and learn to account for it, so over time it's easier to make sense to each other.

It's honestly not uncommon in society for people to aggregate in groups of people who interpret things similarly, and who are thus easier to talk to, rather than actually building the skills of communicating across interpretation gaps. Particularly egregious are those groups of men who talk about Women as an incomprehensible monolith, but it turns up to a greater or lesser degree on a lot of levels.

I suspect this is the root of a lot of parenting problems - people who have never built this communication skillset, and relied on choosing friends who make sense to them without a lot of effort, and who are then totally unprepared to interact with a child who interprets things in ways they don't expect.

Obviously I can't speak to The Universal Typical Experience, not least because it doesn't exist. But in general I would posit that:

Most people, give or take a few assholes, are not trying to say things that are confusing. Most people think they are communicating clearly, because the first interpretation *they* would come up with on hearing one of their own sentences is the correct interpretation.

Many people are not very good at accounting for different ways people could interpret things they're saying. However, it is normal and polite social behavior to be somewhat flexible about this and forgiving of misunderstandings. If people are being shitty to you about not understanding them, they are assholes. And I wouldn't assume that the rest of the communication they have with everyone else they know goes totally smoothly for them.

I suspect there is a bit of an unfortunate feedback loop, where people have bad experiences when someone gets mad at them for not getting something, and learn to hide when they're confused. Which then leads to larger, more complicated misunderstandings, which other different people get upset at them about, because those people think they should have asked for clarification in the first place.

Truly you can't win with everyone. No one can win with everyone. There is no monolith of "neurotypical communication" which resolves all these contradictions - all those people you're lumping in together under "neurotypical" have just as much trouble with each other.

[lunar-years]

Propaganda in SOTR

An interesting facet of the way propaganda is used in SOTR is that the Capitol/Plutarch's manipulation of the footage happens gradually over the course of the Games in real time, which means people see multiple versions of the same events. Things are aired and then scrubbed, or else aired and then re-aired, slightly altered, until we get the edited cut that emerges during the Victory Ceremony recap. That 'final' edit succeeds in replacing the nation's collective memory of the Games, but it's important to note that plenty of citizens have, to varying degrees, witnessed parts of the truth!

For example, the footage from when the Games is airing "live" across Panem during mandatory viewing is not tampered with to nearly the same extent as the post-Games recap, both because:

1) the overarching 'narrative' of the Games inherently cannot be determined until the Games are finished and a Victor is named. Even the Gamemakers don't know exactly how the story's going to end. Things that might've seemed like normal gameplay (such as Haymitch and Ampert's initial meetup/alliance) likely air to the public before it becomes clear that what those two are actually up to is rebellious. When they begin to carry out their plot, certainly the cameras cut over to the other players, meaning none of the tank explosion gets shown, but only later would the Ampert & Haymitch alliance have been cut out completely.

2) The five or so minute delay is not long enough to make the kind of changes Haymitch describes watching during his Victor's Ceremony, and it is more likely that it only gives the Gamemakers/broadcasting crews enough lead time to determine which tributes they should be following at any given point of the Games (and when to cut away when someone is involved in something questionable). When the Careers and Haymitch and Maysilee encounter Gamemakers in the arena, for example, you can bet the footage airing across Panem shifts to Wellie in her tree. But later, when Haymitch tracks down Wellie and helps her, that's something that probably is shown at first, only to be erased later.

I'm thinking about this because I read a review where someone was saying this book opens up new plot holes for the original trilogy, because if they changed up Haymitch's games so much they could've just edited out Katniss and Peeta's suicide attempt and the berries altogether. I think it's a lot more complicated than that!

In her SOTR B&N edition interview, Suzanne even discusses how many versions of Haymitch's reaping exist and air to different people at different times. On the one hand you have what actually happens and is first filmed: The peacekeeper's shooting Woodbine, Lenore Dove helping Woodbine's mother, Haymitch's rigged 'reaping.' All of District 12 witnesses this, but the wider nation doesn't. Then you have the version that is aired to the rest of Panem after the 5 minute delay: Haymitch's name is called. No one reacts. Then you have the version Plutarch tweaks for the nightly recap: Sid and Ma are shown reacting to Haymitch's name being called. You then have the version shown during the Victor's Ceremony, post-games: Sid and Ma are scrubbed from the footage. And even then, finally, you get the version Katniss and Peeta watch on the train in Catching Fire, which Suzanne states could very well have been further tweaked over the years to fit an evolving narrative.

One can imagine this is true of many other elements of these Games. Capitol citizens directly witness both the Chariot Parade and the Interviews. Since the Interviews are also mandatory "live" viewing, nationwide, presumably the rest of Panem get much more extended footage of each tribute (with maybe just a couple of their answers cut by the 5 minute delay) than what is ultimately preserved on the tape Katniss & Peeta see. It's only after the games that the Newcomer alliance is all but erased.

The tributes' families are interviewed when there are eight kids remaining. Sid and Ma must've been interviewed back in Twelve, and surely that was shown. It's cut out, after, to make people forget about Haymitch's family. Similarly, the footage of Haymitch receiving the milk in the arena probably airs, because Snow's plan there is to force Haymitch to look like a terrible person (by dumping it when Wellie needed it), or force him to kill his ally (by giving Wellie the milk), or force him to kill himself (by drinking it), all of which needs to be seen to be effective. That entire plot line is cut from the recap footage because it goes nowhere, and no one who did see it probably thinks anything of it because it ends up not being important to Wellie's or Haymitch's death, but this doesn't erase that people did see it.

Ultimately, the point Suzanne's making re: propaganda isn't as simple as the nation being fed one (1) false version of events and believing it because it's the only thing they've ever been shown. It's that many citizens WITNESSED (to various degrees, depending on where and who they are) other versions of these Games, with more, though still not entirely truthful, elements from reality. Yet even though there are plenty of discrepancies for people to question, no one does. Haymitch even comments on this as he's watching the recap. The Capitol's gone so far as to have even changed up the order of the deaths (which wouldn't have been altered in the "live" footage for obvious reasons), and the Capitol audience is eating it up even though they MUST remember it didn't happen like that!! The propaganda, the final narrative, is so effective that it makes people forget even the truths they have seen with their own eyes. Reality gets buried under several layers of falsehood, not just the one. And no one asks any questions.

To bring it back around to Peeta and Katniss, their games and rebellion are harder to alter for several reasons. Some things do get cut, including what Katniss' does for Rue, in the recap. But The Finale is the one point of the games that to some degree needs to be shown in all versions. There's no one else left to cut away to, for one, and there also needs to be some sort of narrative ending to close the Games. It's harder to edit actual deaths, and harder still when it's down to the last two tributes remaining. (I'll point out here that the Capitol doesn't alter the force field trick in Haymitch's games, either, even though some people might have read rebellion even in that [Katniss and Peeta certainly do!] They really couldn't. This is why I think Haymitch's side plot to blow up the cornucopia and kill off Silka and likely himself in the process might have actually worked to cause a visible stark for the rebellion more than anything else that he does. To at least some degree, that would've had to have been shown. They would need it to explain the ending.)

Now, in a best case scenario, the Gamemakers certainly could've sent in a targeted mutt or something to take out Katniss or Peeta, and thus handpicked their singular Victor. But this idea is immediately foiled by the both of them very imminently killing themselves. This time, the Capitol does not have the benefit of time on their side, and the 5 minute delay in the footage makes not one ounce of difference.

Secondly, Katniss & Peeta have the added protection their personal narratives afford them. It's harder to erase Prim from all footage than it was Sid and Ma, because Katniss volunteering for Prim is The Fact about her everyone latches onto pre-Games. The desperate star-crossed lovers storyline, meanwhile, effectively makes the berry trick ambiguous, instead of inherently rebellious. Some might see it as an attack against the Capitol, but plenty more buy into the romance, and even Snow is forced to admit that this narrative can be useful in shifting the public sentiment. By that point in the books, the time for killing them has passed and it makes more sense for the Capitol to use Katniss & Peeta, just as by the end of SOTR, it makes more sense for the Capitol to use Haymitch to solidify their propaganda. Thus, Haymitch's story enhances Katniss and Peeta's, rather than tarnishes its believability. When propaganda works, it will have people believing what they are told above even their own memories. Katniss' ~luck~ comes from what Haymitch never had... a series of other events and people directly aligning with her actions to allow them to break through the Capitol's narrative.

[onedeadkitty]

In light of Blue Eye Samurai winning an Emmy I want to get something off my chest.

It makes me so mad that Michael green gets all the credit for Being the “creator” of Blue eye samurai. It’s so tragic and almost ironic considering the contents of the show that all the Asian women that worked on the show get completely overshadowed by the husband of the real creator AMBER NOIZUMI, who came up with the show and wrote most of the plot. Also the shows *director * JANE WU (who is incredible) and the countless other Women/Asian artist, writers and actors that often don’t get mentioned.

It’s the tragedy of Hollywood plastering the white male pos big name guy over all the marketing for the show all because he directed other unrelated movies. And then people not watching the show cause “the creators a Zionist” (which is a valid reason not to watch something)

And it’s just sad a show created mostly by Asian women about Asian women basically gets sabotaged cause Micheal green is an idiot who doesn’t understand the morals of the very show he’s working on.

It all feels like a frustrating bojack episode.

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[mrmeepsmadmind]

bee's protective nature over anyone persists even as a ghost & i think he sometimes forgets or doesn't care that only star can see him (sadly no touch tho) & will start shouting & angrily try standing between people who are mad at starscream even tho he can't be seen, he just wants to try & help anyways bcs STOP IT >:(!! BE NICE !!!! cried the ghost no one can hear or see except for the poor guy getting yelled at & trying to overhear the conversation over bee's frantic rebuttals while trying to discreetly let bee know it's ok while ALSO trying not to look Insane .

continued attempt at a 4am drawn doodle comic below

i might draw detailed later but yeah i just wanted to give yall this headcanon bcs i love starbee so much... the nagging wives finally finding their true loves... another nagging wife.

' you .. do know only i can hear and see you, unfortunately, right? or are you starting to go loopy, because i don't need another insane figure haunting me. I have enough already, as you can try and fail to imagine, little bee . '

' trust me, im Well aware .. of everything you just said . .. but i just. i couldn't just Stand there and do Nothing while someone talked to you like You were Nothing . that's not the autobot way. that's not- my way . '

' . . . '

[kwillow]

will theo ever be happy

Maybe in another life.

[lordandladywhistledown]

People wanting Pen and Colin’s story to drag out like they've only just met in ep 1... HELLO???

They've known each other since they were kids, why are you expecting them to have "let's get to know each other" conversations like Pen and Debling had? Polin are so far away from acquaintances that it's diminishing their story and their essence as a couple by adding superficial dialogue. They are each other's best friends (sorry Eloise) and know each other better than anyone (ex. Penelope seeing through Colin’s mask immediately after he came back) and that's why they don't need 7 episodes to fall in love - they're in love even before ep1 of s3!!! (Yes, Colin as well).

You can't expect a slow burn because the slow burn has already happened, specifically in the seasons before this one.

Not all love stories need to have an interesting beginning and build up, some are a bit more tame but much more exciting after they get together (aka the LW drama that's about to ensue) and similarly not all love stories end right after they wed.

People compare the last two seasons to this one and expect the same things, and that's virtually impossible considering we've known Colin and Penelope now longer than we did Anthony and Kate or Daphne and Simon. Plus, the tropes are also completely different so people who expect Kanthony 2.0 this season with Polin are absolutely fucking insane.

We know Penelope loves Colin, we know Colin doesn't think of Penelope as someone he might marry, we know Penelope wrote about Colin and Marina and we absolutely know that they still care deeply for one another. So therefore there's no need to add all of that if it's already astablished but rather to continue and develop their story into a new depth and a new story, with them already being in love from the beginning.

Also,

HALF OF THE FUCKING STORY IS STILL MISSING!?!?!?!

Yes Jennifer, of course the story feels unfinished and rushed by the end of ep4 because IT IS STILL FUCKING UNFINISHED

...

[ohwatson]

laughing because you think sherlock-constantly-deducing-the-sexual-and-marital-and-relationship-status-of-everyone-around-him-to-the-point-of-being-resented-for-it-holmes doesn’t have a clue how sex works like bffr

[nin-jay-go]

begging you ppl to PLEASE TAG your spoilers!!!! don't just put up a "this post has spoilers!" thing on the top and not tag it or put it under a readmore! this does not work, because you're requiring people to very quickly scroll without looking at the screen and that's not conducive to browsing the site!

[sieglinde-freud]

hiii @nyxlunaire !!!! sorry i did attempt to type this all in the replies but im a rambler and got smacked with the character limit because i had so much to say so im making it a post! but just know i never mind!! im so flattered ur interested 😭 also if you want me to untag you lmk, i just wanted to make sure you know that i am responding!! just somewhere else. theyre honestly among my favorite sibling pairings in fire emblem, maybe right behind eirika and ephraim which is kind of crazy bc lucina and inigo are definitely. not canon siblings in any way!! but in my head they are and they make a lot of sense to me! overall i think their relationship is a positive one and a close one. there’s a couple of strains, what with inigo’s relatively lackadaisical attitude being a bit annoying for lucina who was probably raised with more rigor (chrom was still ALIVE), and i can imagine lucina’s headstrong-ness could have bothered inigo. but you know. siblings piss eachother off. it happens. i dont think it happens as much with these two, especially in the bad timeline when they both REALLY needed to lock in to stay alive. to me, what really makes them interesting is everything post coming back in time

so they both come back in time and have wildly different experiences with obviously just landing, but more importantly with chrom and olivia. obviously just because of how gameplay works, inigo WOULD have a closer relationship with olivia, and lucina WOULD have a closer relationship with chrom. those have the intentional parent conversations as opposed to the generic ones with their variable parent but that doesnt change that they happen! and so for starters, with inigo specifically, we all know this one. we all know the infamous inigo pc support in which his dad, chrom in this case, compares inigo to lucina and reprimands him for not taking the fight seriously, falling for inigo’s teehee silly dumbass facade that he puts up and thus, despite the resolution in the A support, theres still a distance and there’s still a strain between them that is less than it was before but still present (this you can tell in how chrom treats future past inigo!!)

so we all know that one, very popular non-canon parent-child relationship blah blah blah. but i think what goes underlooked is lucina’s conversation with olivia (and her mother in general). this makes sense, because this support is truly nothing to write home about. its like, cute. but its generic and not all that interesting aside from the acknowledgment of baby lucina. but what im really interested in is the language lucina uses here and in her future past conversations with olivia and when she reunites with her parents after the henry chapter (12? 13?) and its very interesting if you’re someone who likes to read too much into the text where nothing was intended to be this way (me). i wont go into EVERY detail right now with olivia and lucina bc this is supposed to be about the siblings, but its important to note that lucina… does not know olivia. “her olivia died!” very true, but that came after chrom’s death, and lucina is able to adjust to having chrom back very easily! like its natural! but with olivia, she doesnt know how to talk to her. she doesnt understand her clothes, she doesnt know how to read olivia’s reactions, she doesnt know what to say or do when she meets olivia for the first time, and this isnt a problem that i see resolved in the A support all that well. its not the same kind of distance chrom and inigo have, but it is distance.

back to what you actually asked me, because i do have a point with this! i think that inigo and lucina, whether or not they realize it and whether or not they ever admit it to themselves, are jealous of eachother. what lucina has with chrom is what inigo has always needed growing up—a father figure who he can count on the support and love of. but when he found chrom, any stories and descriptions he knew from lucina break instantly once they talk. he says, “For being such a softie with everyone else, he doesn’t pull any punches with me.” how. interesting. and with lucina, i think it would be insane for her to see inigo, who knew their mother for even less time, immediately fall into step with her. they bond over dancing, shyness, and seem to get on well immediately. lucina didnt get that! when lucina saw her mom for the first time, olivia was crying and lashing out at her dad! resolved almost instantly, of course, but that’s a horrible thing to come back to! and she doesnt dance, she doesn’t understand her mom’s anxiety, she doesn’t get the same advice from olivia that inigo does. why? that question will never be answered. but it bothers her, and when siblings are jealous of eachother in this way, it leads to strain. obviously, it wont ruin their relationship. at the end of the day, theyre siblings who love eachother, and at this point, inigo is one of the only people in the world who can truly understand what lucina has been facing and is one of her strongest supporters. but they’re also young and are relishing in the comfort of having their parents back again as well as the discomfort of experiencing sibling rivalry for the first time. the worst part, though, is that they dont get to fix this.

blah blah blah awakening happens grima dies blah blah blah and then BAM. inigo? gone. hes outtie. disappears without a trace and supposedly without any real heads up, and if there is a heads up, its probably wildly inaccurate about the time hes gonna be gone!! and we all know how laslow feels about leaving (immense guilt and despair and sadness and grief) but what if he left a sister behind? a sister that, despite reassurances, feels out of place with her “parents” and who’s watching the rest of her friends move on and start the rest of her lives? a sister who had always planned to go back to their shithole of a home, but never thought she’d have to do it without her little brother by her side, or at least without a proper goodbye. will he come back? should she wait? will she wait? i dont know. i dont think either of them do know and i think thats the scary the part. when laslow comes home and reunites with the family he’s mourning for years, who he’s shared tales and stories and tidbits of with his daughter, will her auntie lucina be there to meet her too?

in my head, yes she is and they all live happily ever after forever BUT. thats a loose end worth exploring i feel. the grief and loss that follows these two is truly never ending and i feel like once you eternally interconnect them this way, through making them siblings, they get a lot more fun. i definitely have more thinking to do on post-fates them but… if they were strained before. weeell. imagine what being apart for that long without resolving your conflict will do to you. haha.

[the-spider-haven]

what a beautifyl nurse!!!!!!!

reference & stupid vent under the cut

my art is genuinely js getting so fucking ugly atp. in my horrible shit art era. fucking kms I hate this so much. stupid idiot loser art KYS.

can’t fucjing draw for SHIT anymore. god I hate drawing sometimes

[ask-fireflycod]

[ The Mission After ] — This is something I wrote cus my brain has been buzzing for a bit dhjsbdne anyway :3

TW’s FOR BELOW THE CUT: Descriptions of wounds ; Anxiety attack ; Ryker punches something he probably shouldn’t (the floor and makes his knuckles bleed)

WC: 1221

The minute Ryker’s feet touched the floor of the hangar, he felt like he could collapse into a pile on the floor. There was a deep ache in his bones, and his head felt like it was pounding each time he blinked. His skin was freezing, and his clothes felt disgusting. It took him a solid minute to recognize he needed to move his feet to get going.

His ankle throbbed. It fucking hurt. His side also hurt, probably wasn’t the best idea to get shot, but it happened.

He muttered something to Nik as he passed by, probably thanking the Russian man but he was too tired to even use proper words. He could’ve said complete nonsense—but he didn’t need to think about that right now. Ryker needed to get his head on straight and get his ass to Price’s office for a debrief. (Even though he really, really didn’t want to do it.)

Ryker already knew how the conversation was going to play out. The mission had gone to shit and snowballed downhill. The guy he’d been tracking for that entire week? Yeah, well, turns out- it was the wrong fucker the whole time. (Ryker had been told that he would possibly get the slip. The victim was amazing when it came to slipping out from under people’s noses.)

The mission was a failure from the start. Ryker hadn’t been given the right information for who he was supposed to be looking for — the intel area was wrong, the team information was wrong, everything was wrong. This hadn’t been Ryker’s best work, and he knew it. The man he’d been tracking (stalking) had turned out to be the wrong fucker, and slipped off. Without anyone knowing. (Ryker took great pride in his work, and anything less than his best was unacceptable in his eyes.) — Ryker’s mouth felt dry as he explained to Price about the entire thing, and each sigh or grunt from the older man felt like a hot knife against his back.

‘Pull your shit together, Sergeant. We’ve got jobs to do, and we’ve gotta get them right. Don’t go pulling another stunt like this. We can’t afford it. Dismissed.’

When Price finally waved Ryker off (after giving the man a less than savory report back), Ryker practically scampered off with his tail between his legs. He was so… so— he didn’t know. He ran a shaking hand through his hair, sighing unevenly. He needed to take a shower and get the fuck into his bed. He knew that. But the idea of stepping under the water after nearly drowning himself (twice) on that mission was enough to make him steer clear and decide a shower was better in the morning.

Instead, he decided to head down the hall. Taking a quick pause at Declan’s door and leaving a (well hidden) bag near it — the wine he’d mentioned days ago, and some other fun bits and bobs. He figured Declan would find it eventually. He quickly headed off, and stopped at Feiyun’s door; hand freezing on the handle. Normally, he’d just walk in and get comfortable in the bed, soundly curled up behind her — but he took a look at the state of himself, and realized that something in his chest constricted uncomfortably at the idea of her seeing him this… vulnerable? Not like him.

So he did the same thing—he hid the bag of items well (a book, a little stuffed capybara and a necklace that… he thought looked really pretty.) and quickly moved on. Ryker dipped into his bunk and closed the door behind him, immediately feeling weight slide off his shoulders. He fumbled out of his work gear and only realized then his hands were shaking.

Ryker paused for a moment, staring as his hands shook as the adrenaline of everything finally cleared from his head. He swallowed hard and tried to ignore the little voice in his head that nagged at him, and as he pulled his shirt off he winced.

His side had a shot wound that was very red and inflamed, and the blood had congealed around it grossly - making his shirt stick to him. Ryker wanted to throw up the minute he looked at it, having to forcefully calm his racing heart as he searched for the little emergency med kit he kept around. Sure, there were some medics still awake, but Ryker would’ve rather died than let them see him like this. (He couldn’t stand the thought of anyone seeing him injured and open like a wounded animal, cornered.)

His stitch job was shitty, and he knew he should probably get someone to properly fix him up in the morning. Badger probably—maybe a different medic. He couldn’t bring this to Feiyun, she didn’t need to know her partner was like this. (The idea of her seeing him like this made his skin crawl)

Ryker sat back against his door, the cold material a bit uncomfortable against his back. He let his head fall back against it and sat there silently for a moment.

He was off his game that entire week. This was his shit- he was supposed to be good in tracking and good at shooting. Instead he got the wrong information and followed the wrong lead and almost shot the wrong guy. All of it was wrong—he always took such care with his work, what the fuck went wrong? Why the fuck did it go wrong? Ryker just—he scrubbed his hands over his face and felt his shoulders grow tense again.

Ryker’s work was almost always near perfect—almost. He took such care, and always tried to make sure he didn’t miss anything. It’s why he’d been promoted to a Staff Sergeant in the Task Force. He couldn’t understand why he was getting sloppy. Sure he was tired, and felt like he was always running on empty, and honestly felt like he was so close to burning everything around him and crashing hard. His throat suddenly got tight, and he let the back of his head hit the door again.

His vision began to swim and blur, and his head suddenly felt so foggy. Ryker crumbled against his door, fingers pressing hard against his temples as he fought to keep himself in tact. Fuck, he felt like he was dying. His chest constricted and crushed his lungs — it felt like the weight of everything was crushing him again; the constant need to keep up, to keep that air of perfection, that act of confidence that everyone seemed to believe (when really he still felt like a small child who was so scared all the time).

“FUCK!” Ryker’s body acted faster than his brain could handle, and in a desperate attempt for any kind of control — he cracked his fist against the hard floor of his dorm, the skin on his knuckles splitting open and leaving small red droplets breaking out across them. Ryker stared at his wounded hand listlessly for a moment, before letting his head hit his knees. Maybe it was time to take up Price’s suggestion of the base therapist…

Ignoring how his eyes suddenly felt warm and his cheeks wet, Ryker lazily pulled on some better sleepwear and collapsed into his cot. And if anyone asked about his—everything—tomorrow, he’d make up some fun heroic story. Like he always did.

[realbeefman]

i think that my main qualm with mac finds his pride is not that it isn't funny which. by the way it kills me that they for some godforsaken reason purposefully stripped so much of the comedy out of that episode. peaches. god. but more so that rob mcelhenney CANNOT fucking dance so you have this incredibly talented ballerina quite literally dancing circles around him and for me that kills the whole thematic significance of a DUET. a duet is equal! it’s the melding of two partners together into one performance!!! it’s acceptance and violence and mutual love or obsession or hate all in one!!!! the message they're supposed to be sending is that mac's reconciliation with god and her love and acceptance is a reconciliation of mac’s Self with a Higher Self. but instead because ROB can't dance SHE is the one running his life. GOD is the one dragging poor mac around and yanking him to and fro. and instead of casting god (the conception of her held in mac's mind that is) as a benevolent presence trying to help mac find pride in and accept himself it instead casts her as a gaslighting mother figure which he ALREADY HAS.

[ruvviks]

Vitali kept cutting and cutting and cutting, tears dripping down onto his tank top and into the sink. He accidentally scraped one of the scissor blades past his finger- and his tears rapidly mixed with a few drops of deep red blood. He loved his hair. He had always done so- but his mother too. She had been obsessed with it, and when he had decided to bleach it she had been livid. But for some reason she had still allowed him to do it as many times as he wanted, as if she believed it would at least stop him from cutting it short, even after he had come out as transgender. And it had worked, somehow. He had never even dared to think about picking up a pair of scissors. Vitali let a single scream leave his lips as he threw the scissors down into the sink, gripping the edge tightly again as he nearly lost his balance. He was out of breath; shaky, shallow inhales providing him with just enough oxygen to not pass out, and he slowly looked back up at his reflection. And in that split second of realization, he regretted it. All of it. A sudden clarity washed over him and his sobs faltered, deafening silence washing over the bathroom as he carefully brushed his now neck-length hair out of his face. It was uneven; some strands barely even reached his chin. He looked different, now. Could barely recognize himself. — From Chapter 12: The Mother; read the full fic here

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree;

@jacobseed

[ghostbeam]

i shudder to think about what shidou does to the anime figures he buys of me

oh god he's actually DISGUSTING

[nerdyenby]

Me making literally any two characters foils:

So Scott and Scar in secret life express love in opposite ways. All three of Scott’s lives were given willingly, the man lives and breathes sacrifice. He wants to see those he cares about succeed more than he cares about his own chances. He runs to Martyn, to Gem, and tells them to kill him. Scott has made it far enough too many times to have any illusion about how these games end. When he dies, he wants it to be not a tragedy but an act of love. His game has to end somehow, and it might as well be at the hands of his allies, giving them a parting gift to increase their odds however he can. Scar, on the other hand, hadn’t won before. While Scott often has the most dedicated and steadfast alliances in these games, Scar tends to end up alone. Scar, who is clumsy and is actively unbothered by jabs at his apparent incompetence, was never expected to make it this far. No one thought Scar would win, least of all himself. Being so consistently underrated with his skills often going unnoticed, he’s as surprised as anyone by him making it as far as he did. Still, it is largely because of his reputation as accident prone that Scar refuses charity. Pearl offers her life on a platter to him several times, but he adamantly refuses every time. Out of character, Scar tells her that he doesn’t want to win that much, not like that. If he’s going to win, it’s going to be by his own merit. Besides that, he won’t accept sacrifice on account of respect. He says to Pearl over and over again that she gets this far because she’s good at what she does, that she should be proud of that. Pearl deserves better than a lackluster sacrifice to someone who was barely even an ally earlier that same episode. She deserves to take it as far as she can, Scar refuses to get in the way of that, not unless he has to. When it comes down to the two of them, he was more than willing to fight as long as she fought back. Scar wasn’t going to tolerate Pearl sacrificing herself, out of both pride and admiration. But what if there was another factor as well? After all, Scar’s been on the other side of sacrifices before. The first winner of the series achieved as much largely due to Scar’s willingness to offer himself up. Scar had urged Grian to kill him as soon as they were both on red, but — just like Scar four seasons later — Grian refused. Instead of doing what Scar said and killing him then and there, the pair headed back home. They said their goodbyes, and leveled the playing field as much as possible. Regardless, Scar knew who had to win. Scar has always been a better fighter than anyone has given him credit for, if he had any desire to be the one left standing, he would have put up more of a fight. Instead, he took his time and pulled his punches while Grian mercilessly wailed on him. Grian wouldn’t accept a direct sacrifice, just like Scar refused with Pearl, but that doesn’t mean neither Scar nor Pearl had any plans of making it out alive. Looking back at Third Life, it’s hard to say if Scar regrets how he handled the final duel, if he wishes it had happened differently, but we know his and Grian’s relationship was never the same. Grian distanced himself from Scar, they always gravitated towards one another but Grian kept pulling away. Scar may not regret the way Third Life ended but Grian does, and Grian’s regret haunts Scar too.